


Someone Worth Saving

by dairycow



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Betrayal, Cute, Emotional, Emotional Roller Coaster, Eventual Romance, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Disintegration, Romantic Friendship, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-14 20:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8027734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dairycow/pseuds/dairycow
Summary: Before Laura, there was Ell. Passionate, kind, bright, and mesmerizing, Carmilla didn't stand a chance as Ell captured her heart, the only one to have done so in centuries. The year was 1872, the Metropolitan Museum of Art had just opened its doors, and two girls were falling for each other. But how could two people love each other so much and have it not be enough?





	1. Creatures of the Night

The heavy tin of pomade clattered to the floor and rolled to a stop against the slightly open door. Carmilla groaned and bent over to retrieve it. Sighing, she sat up straight in front of the mirror perched atop the hardwood dresser in her room. Her reflection peered back at her. Long chocolate brown curls framed her charcoal eyes and pale skin. She looked unsure of herself. She looked… frightened. Nearly two hundred years had passed, but the ritual still made Carmilla uncomfortable. Of course, everything always went according to plan. But the scheme always lasted so long, and there were so many possibilities that something would go wrong. Of course, Mother could fix anything, but her rage… Carmilla shuddered. That was not something that she wanted to see.

Glancing back at the pomade, she swiped a finger in the rose tinted waxy mixture and dabbed it on her lips and cheeks. Then, she tucked the tin back into her trunk and picked up a black corset.

“Mattie!” she called. “Can you help me with this?”

“Carmilla, darling?” Mattie waltzed in, wearing a forest green velvet travelling dress.

“These corsets, they’ll be the death of me,” Carmilla grumbled, wrapping the stiff material around her torso.

“Well…” Mattie laughed, “They can’t really, now can they?”

“You know what I mean!” Carmilla turned around, allowing her sister to tighten the ropes. The whalebones around her chest constricted and she struggled to breathe.

“You seem awfully nervous tonight, sis.”

“You know how Mother gets this time of century,” Carmilla mumbled.

“The rest of us have to do it too.” Mattie deftly twisted the ropes into a bow.

“Don’t you ever feel bad?” Carmilla asked, struggling against the bindings. Damn corsets.

“What?”

“The girls, you know. And we don’t even know what Mother and her friends are going to do with them!”

“They’re all humans. Gnats. Rich spoiled naïve girls, who know nothing about the world.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Carmilla looked down at her hands. Pale, blue veined, warm to the touch. Not human. Not alive, but not dead either.

“And you and I, little sister, we are beautiful creatures of the night.” Mattie patted the back of the corset. “I’m done.”

“Thanks, Mattie.”

“See you on the other side, sis.” She waltzed back out and Carmilla grabbed the plum coloured dress hanging on the back of the chair. The gaslights were popping on, one by one, in the dark streets outside the windows so she knew the time was close. As Carmilla stepped into the dress, she only hoped that everything would go according to plan that night.


	2. Broken Glass and Wood Splinters

Ell stood on the landing above the great ballroom, peering down the grand stairway. She gazed out at the crowd of gentlemen and ladies standing beneath her and felt an unfamiliar lurch of nerves in her stomach. For once in her life, she was nervous. This was the New York debutante ball, after all, and Ell was going to be introduced to all of America’s high society in a couple of moments. There was no event that was more important in the season. Not least because she was expected to become engaged in the upcoming three months, to a young bachelor standing in that room in the Astor House. No pressure, or anything. What if they didn’t like her? What if she fell on her face and became the laughingstock of the town?

“Alda Van Paumen, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Van Paumen, of Van Paumen Tobacco Industries.” The announcer was a portly older gentleman standing to the side of the grand staircase. He was balding, with white whiskers, and a silk top hat. His appearance was stereotypical to the point of being comical. Ell glanced at the girl in front of her, a mousy tiny thing clad in a monstrous white confection of a dress. The audience clapped politely but Carmilla had the sense that they, too, shared her opinion. Totally not her type. Then, she caught herself. Her type? Oh, Ell, she thought, you’re really off your game tonight. Her type? Of course she wasn’t. She was a girl!

“Eleanor Carmichael, daughter of Mr. Harry Carmichael, of New World Shipping Corporation.” Ell was snapped out of her reverie. She stepped forward. Smile. Walk. Don’t fall. But her smile felt more like a grimace and she wobbled on her heels. She started down the staircase making sure not to step on her –

Ell nearly tumbled down the stairs, startled by an explosion of sound that rang through the ballroom. Glass tinkled and shattered in the distance, men yelled, and women screamed. She grabbed the railing in the nick of time, moments before breaking her neck on the cold hard marble steps beneath her. What in the name of God was that? The guests were rushing out of the ballroom in a flurry of voluminous gowns towards the direction of the sound. Ell followed, balling her long skirts up in her fists to avoid tripping. She made it down the stairs fine, sprinted across the polished ballroom floor, through the heavy wood double doors, and stopped in her tracks. An involuntary gasp escaped her mouth. An overturned carriage lay in the foyer of the Astor House. Behind it, there was a massive gaping hole in the façade of the building, and glass and wood splinters lay everywhere. The windows of the carriage were shattered and its slick black paint was completely macerated. Outside, she could hear the whinny of a panicked horse, growing fainter as it barreled away from the carnage.

Two women were climbing out of the carriage, slowly and gingerly. One of them was tall and beautiful, with russet red hair cascading over her shoulders and down her back. The other was dark and drop dead gorgeous, wearing a forest green dress. Ell could only assume she was the former’s maid. A third woman – well, girl, really – lay among the glass shards, unmoving. The russet haired woman turned, saw the unconscious girl, and began to scream. It chilled Ell to the bones to hear such an unearthly bloodcurdling sound.

“Miss!” Ell’s father stepped forward. Tentatively, he began to shake the fallen woman. “Miss, are you alright?”

“Call for a doctor!” someone yelled. The throng of people murmured and shifted before somebody broke away to find a physician.

Ell found herself inexplicably drawn to the center of the carnage. The girl was, in a word, mesmerizing. She carefully padded over the broken glass and wood splinters towards her father and the girl. The glass crunched beneath her feet and she shivered. The temperature felt as if it had dropped ten degrees, but Ell reminded herself that shock did that to a person.

“No! Ell, step back.” Harry ordered. “You could hurt yourself!” Ell paid him no heed as she crouched beside them. With a gloved hand, she gently brushed the girl’s hair back. Her fingers made their way down to the side of her neck. She felt for a pulse, like her mother had taught her to do, all those years back, and breathed a sigh of relief when she found it, faint but still present.

The whiskery old man appeared in the room, the same one who had called Ell’s name just a few minutes ago, and crunched over the broken glass. Two young tuxedoed lads followed behind him, carrying a stretcher. Ell guessed they kept it on hand in case of emergencies, like this one. The old man, presumably a doctor, bent over and examined the still body.

“Let’s get her out of here,” he ordered gruffly, turning towards the young men. The lads set the stretcher down and together, they lifted the girl onto it. Her arms dangled off of the sides and her head lolled over. Ell quickly placed the two arms onto the girl’s stomach, one crossed over the other. The tuxedoed boys picked up the stretcher, and they – the doctor, lads, two women, father, and daughter – hurried through the devastated lobby to a side room.

Their journey was quick, and after the stretcher was set down on a large table in the middle of the room, the doctor commenced an all-over examination of the unconscious girl. Ell’s father held her back, one warm hand gripping her shoulder, as if he too needed the reassurance of another person that the girl was going to be okay.

Ell busied herself looking around the room. She didn’t want to see the blood still trickling from the girl’s wounds or watch as the doctor cleaned the cuts with a noxious smelling concoction. The room they were in was huge, but didn’t seem it in the warm flickering glow of the gaslights. It looked like some sort of storage room, dusty from years of disuse. In addition to the table, there were hundreds of chairs stacked on top of each other, dilapidated and ancient cabinets lining the walls, and boxes of supplies piled haphazardly on top of one another. The dust was making her eyes water and her nose itch, and all Ell really wanted to do was sneeze. But her father would have chastised her for being unladylike in the presence of others, and it would have rubbed Ell the wrong way, so she refrained, instead massaging her nose to ease the itch.

“Hey.”

Ell looked up and saw one of the boys who had been carrying the stretcher. “Hi.”

He extended his hand and she took it. “Thomas Hyatt”, he said, pressing his lips to her gloved hand and bowing with a flourish. Ell smiled faintly. He was… interesting, to say the least, but right now her attentions were focused on the girl who hopefully wasn’t dying on the table.

“Eleanor Carmichael,” she replied absently.

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Thomas followed her gaze to the girl who somehow was still unconscious. “Don’t worry,” he said, following the train of her thoughts. “She’ll come around soon enough. It’s the shock of the accident, but it should be wearing off soon. I’ve seen a lot worse: more blood loss, greater trauma, and people come back just fine.”

Harry Carmichael cleared his throat. “Ahem, Mr. Hyatt, I do believe that there are more suitable topics to be discussed in the presence of young ladies than carnage and bloodshed.” Ell rolled her eyes at the same time that Thomas ducked his head, obviously embarrassed.

“My apologies, Mr. Carmichael. I did not intend to upset your daughter in any way.”

Ell laughed. “Don’t mind my father.” Shooting a pointed glare at him, she added “he does have a tendency to treat his daughter like a delicate flower, prone to wilting suddenly and without warning.”

Thomas smiled back at her. “My mother always tells me that I say too much in front of the ladies.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’m training to become a doctor. Much to my parents’ dismay.”

“I take it that they had high hopes of your future leadership of the family business.”

“Indeed. But now they’ll just have to settle for my younger brother.”

“That’s not too unfortunate. After all, they couldn’t possibly give their company over to somebody who’s so clueless with the ladies,” Ell teased.

Thomas cracked a wide grin, but before he could respond, the doctor straightened up and pronounced that the girl was doing much better. “She isn’t in the clear yet as she might have hit her head in the crash.”

“Will she be alright? Can she leave tonight?” the russet haired woman asked urgently. Ell was so engrossed in her conversation with Thomas that she had forgotten the woman was there.

“Afraid not. The young lady needs to recover after the shock that she has been through tonight. I’d like to check up on her later on to make sure she’s recovering well.”

Ell turned to the boy beside her. He gave her a small smile and a bow. “I must go now; Mother will absolutely have a fit if I’m gone much longer, but it was a pleasure meeting you,” he whispered.

“The pleasure was all mine,” Ell said. Her smile was genuine as she watched the boy dart away quickly. She was brought back to the present by her father squeezing her shoulder. She turned to look at him and he indicated the girl with his head. Hesitantly, Ell stepped forward. She knew it would make the girl feel better, but her hands were clumsy and she felt self-conscious as she reached for the bowl of cool water and towel and began to wipe the girl’s forehead. Her eyes drifted from the hushed conversation at the side of the room to the beautiful young creature beneath her hand.

“We have to leave tonight. My husband has just passed and we must return to Austria to settle his estate.” The woman grabbed the doctor by the arms and shook him wildly. “We have to!”

“I’m sorry, madam,” the doctor said. He readjusted his glasses on his nose and grimaced at the shaking he had just received. “But your daughter is in no state to travel right now. To do so would put her into grave danger.” It was almost comical, the way he had responded to the woman’s desperate pleas. He sounded so mechanical, so robotic. So incapable of emotion.

“What do we do?” the woman asked, wringing her hands. “We have to leave tonight. We have to.” It was almost as though she were reassuring herself.

“Madam.” Ell’s father stepped forward. “May I make you an offer?” Ell practically knew what her father was going to say next. The russet haired woman wiped tears from the corners of her eyes and nodded. “She can stay with us. I’m Harry Carmichael, of New World Shipping. We can take care of…” Harry glanced towards the prone girl.

“Carmilla. Her name is Carmilla,” the woman sniffed.

“We’ll take care of Carmilla. I have a daughter myself, Madam. About the same age.” Harry called over his shoulder, “Ell, come here.”

Ell ripped herself away from the injured girl. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Madam,” she quickly said, smoothing her skirts. All she wanted to do was to get back to tending the captivating injured girl.

“Thank you for the kind offer, Sir, but we couldn’t impose on you. It’ll be the New Year at least before I’m even back.”

“Oh, please, Madam, it would be no imposition at all.” Harry flashed a charming grin, one Ell knew all too well from his endless business dinners, social gatherings, and dates with respectable and not so respectable women from around town.

“Really, we couldn’t.”

“It would be no problem at all. I’m sure my daughter and yours will become fast friends.”

Ell smiled back at the girl on the stretcher. Carmilla, she thought, we will indeed become fast friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That feel when Season 3 drops tomorrow and you're dying from the anticipation.


	3. Eleanor Carmichael

Carmilla opened her eyes and startled to find her mother’s face looming over hers. It was always particularly horrifying to see her mother in general, but especially when she insisted upon waking her in such a fashion.

“We need to leave now,” her mother singsonged. In a lower tone that only she and Carmilla could hear, she added “don’t screw this up. I’m coming back January third and you better be ready then.” Her mother straightened up, smiled sweetly as she smoothed her skirts, and sashayed out the door.

Carmilla raised herself onto her elbows. “What happened?” she mumbled. She was playing the part, like the good little girl her mother expected her to be.

“You shouldn’t be getting up. Lie back down, you’re hurt.” She felt a firm hand push her back down onto the stretcher. Carmilla growled, unwilling to follow the order until a moment later, when a girl appeared above her. She quite literally looked like an angel. Golden hair framed her pale face, her body was covered in a soft white gown, and the hand that held her down was swathed in a white silk glove.

“Who are you?” Carmilla asked. She couldn’t connect the disembodied voices she had heard earlier when her eyes were closed with this heavenly creature.

“Oh sorry, how rude of me.” The girl dipped her head and smiled, self-consciously. “I’m Eleanor Carmichael. But call me Ell.” A wide smile spread across her face. Normally, Carmilla couldn’t stand others to be so bright and bubbly, but this time, she couldn’t help but smile back.

“I’m Carmilla.”

“I know,” Ell laughed. “I mean, I didn’t know before, but now I know, because your mother told us.”

“I know,” Carmilla said.

“Well.”

“Well.” An awkward silence filled the air between them as they smiled at each other bashfully. Carmilla couldn’t tear her gaze away from the girl. She was certainly pretty, but pretty girls were nothing new. There was something else about Ell that made her so mesmerizing.

“Ell?” Another disembodied voice floated above the two girls.

“Yes, Papa?” Ell practically skipped away to her father. Carmilla turned her head and saw the father and daughter whispering in hushed tones at the side of the room. Of course, she could have listened in, due to her supernatural vampire hearing, but she chose not to. There were other things that needed tending to. For example, her injuries. Carmilla scanned her body and found a few scratches on her arms, and a nasty gash across her leg. When she touched her cheek, her fingers came away wet with blood. It was nothing that wouldn’t heal up within a few days, but her injuries certainly made her ‘accident’ more convincing. It bothered her that she would have to feed sooner than usual because of the blood loss.

Ell bounced back and tapped Carmilla lightly on the shoulder. “So, Carmilla, how do you feel about getting out of here?” She was bubbling over with excitement.  
Carmilla laughed. Ell really was irresistible. “Sure. Where exactly are we going?”

The golden haired girl clapped her hands together. “The carriage will be around soon and we can take you back home to rest.” As she turned to leave, Carmilla’s hand shot out by its own accord and grabbed her by the wrist.

“Thank you, Ell.”

“No problem, Carm… I can call you that, right? Carm?”

“Sure. Why not.”

 

When the carriage finally pulled up in front of the Astor House, Ell carefully helped Carmilla off the stretcher and into the luxurious back. She insisted on letting Carmilla lie down along the length of the plush seat.

“But there won’t be space for you or your father!” Carmilla protested.

“Don’t worry about me, honey, I’ll sit up front with the driver,” Harry Carmichael insisted. “And Ell can sit on the floor.”

Ell nodded quickly. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine, really!”

Sighing, Carmilla reclined back onto the long seat. Ell clambered in and knelt on the floor in front of her. The footman closed the door and they were off, clattering along the cobblestones back uptown.

The floor certainly wasn’t comfortable, and Ell bounced with every cobblestone they traversed. Her teeth clacked and her back began to hurt soon enough, like somebody was striking her with a sledgehammer. It was moments like these that she really appreciated her station in life. There was quite a lot that she could get away with, as the daughter of one of the richest and most respected men in town. She really was lucky, in some ways.

Ell studied the dark haired girl before her. She was resting peacefully, her eyes closed, her hair arranged in a halo around her face, and her hands folded on her stomach. Without the blood staining her skin and clothes, she would have looked like Snow White. She was certainly attractive enough, with long dark eyelashes, unblemished pale skin, and a dainty aquiline nose. Even though Ell was fairly sure that the girl was asleep, the corners of her eyes and lips tugged upwards in a mysterious half smile.  
The dark eyes blinked open and caught Ell’s gaze. Busted. Ell blushed and looked away, but not before she glimpsed the smile spreading across Carmilla’s face.

“What’s up, creampuff?” Ell’s ears turned red as she dropped her gaze to her folded hands. She knew that she had totally been caught. Carmilla followed her eyes and groaned.

“Oh no, I got blood all over you.”

Ell blinked. “What?”

“Your gloves? Your dress? I’m so sorry.”

It took a moment for Ell to process what she was talking about. There were streaks of dried blood across her white dress and red stains along the palm of her right hand. If she was to be honest with herself, she did look like she had just returned from slaughtering a pig. She shrugged. It was just a dress after all. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I ruined your dress!”

“Really, stop. It’s just a dress.”

“I’m sorry.” The dark haired girl wrung her hands.

Ell reached over and squeezed Carmilla’s fingers. The injured girl temporarily froze, eyes wide. Funny how she was so shy, despite being so self-assured at the same time.

“It’s fine, Carmilla. Don’t worry about it. Just a dress.”


	4. Are You Always Like This?

Carmilla swayed woozily as Ell led her to the front of the mansion. She was sure her face was beet red, because one of Ell’s arms was slung around her waist, and the other held her hand in place. They felt like they were burning into her skin. Funny. She had never felt awkward at all when she went through the same routine with the other marks. It was probably just that she was out of practice.

“I had more to drink tonight than you did, and now look at us,” Ell joked. Carmilla laughed weakly and tried to focus on getting safely up the front steps. Having super-speed and super-strength didn’t make her less of a klutz than she was before she was turned. Ahead of them, Harry Carmichael had already gotten the door open and a tiny old lady greeted them in the doorway.

“Mr. Carmichael. What’s going on?” The woman asked, clearly baffled by the unexpected newcomer.

“Allison, can you see to it that this young lady has a warm bath drawn and a clean room?”

“Of course, Mr. Carmichael. Welcome home.” The woman bowed and disappeared into the house.

As Ell and Carmilla summited the remaining steps and stumbled into the mansion, Carmilla gasped. The Carmichael residence was grand. She had always known about the huge Manhattan homes that rich Americans kept, but neither Mother nor Mattie had one in their possession. Thus, she had not imagined that one of these could rival the splendor of the castle she had grown up in, when she was still the young Countess Karnstein. Boy, was she wrong. The two girls wobbled through the massive foyer, up two flights of polished wooden stairs, and through to a gilded palatial bedroom.

“Welcome to your room!” Ell said with a flourish. She attempted to guide Carmilla through the doorway and over to the side of the room, but somehow, their feet had caught under the heavy Persian carpet and Carmilla fell, accidentally pulling Ell down on top of her.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Ell’s goofy smile transformed into one of alarm in milliseconds. Carmilla took one look at her horrified face and burst into peals of laughter. The situation was too ridiculous not to laugh at. The blonde looked confused at first, but the corners of her lips tugged upwards and soon, she too was laughing hysterically.

Once they had gotten over their temporary fit of insanity, Ell got back up and pulled Carmilla to her feet. She couldn’t quite believe the scale of the room. It was oversized, like everything else in the house. A four poster wooden bed sat square in the middle of the room. The canopy, drapes, and bedding were made of matching red velvet. On the far wall was a gigantic window, covered with golden curtains. The floors were polished hardwood and the walls were papered with gold and red, save for a massive fireplace at the foot of the bed, blazing with a freshly made fire. Carmilla’s two trunks lay along the same wall as the door, beneath a dresser. There were two other doors in the room, adjacent to the one that they had entered through. Ell didn’t hesitate before pushing through the closer one and taking Carmilla with her.

They emerged in a well-lit washroom. Here, the floors were marble instead of wood, and there was a large ceramic tub in the middle of the room, but otherwise, it was decorated similarly to the guest room.

“You need to wash off,” Ell said. Only then did Carmilla notice the steam rising from the tub and the soaps and washes lining the edge.

“I do,” she agreed. Carmilla began to shoo Ell out of the room.

“Wait!” Ell paused. “You can’t do that. What if you pass out and drown?”

“Well, you can’t sit here and watch me bathe!” The thought both embarrassed and amused Carmilla. She couldn’t look the other girl in the eyes because the thought of bathing in front of her was just too awkward.

“What if I sit outside the door?” Ell suggested. “And then you can keep talking to me so that I know you aren’t passed out and drowning in your own bath water.”

“What a fate,” Carmilla mumbled, earning a half smile from Ell as she quickly left the room.

Carmilla started unbuttoning her dress. “So where are you from?” The door only muffled Ell’s voice slightly.

“Styria. In Austria.” Carmilla dropped her traveling dress to the ground and slipped out of her petticoat next.”

“You don’t have an accent.”

“We left a long time ago.” The petticoat was in a pile on the floor now and Carmilla worked at untying her corset.”

“Where did you live afterwards?”

Carmilla frowned. Ell asked a lot of questions. Her head told her that it was annoying, but some other part of her also found it strangely endearing. Carmilla knew she shouldn’t have answered once she did, but that didn’t stop the flow of words from her tongue.

“We’ve been about. London, Paris, Cairo, Amsterdam, Istanbul.” It was too easy to open up to this girl.

“Wow.” As Carmilla stepped into the warm tub, she heard a soft sigh from Ell. “That’s incredible,” Ell said wistfully. “What was it like?”

“What was where like?”

“All of it! Tell me every little detail.”

Carmilla shook her head. No. She couldn’t tell this girl more about herself. It was dangerous. She had lived four lifetimes already, and no matter how hard she could try to keep her story straight, it would all come out eventually. It was already unheard of enough that a girl of eighteen years could have lived in so many places. She really couldn’t afford to reveal much more, so instead, she deflected the question.

“Where are you from?” she asked, picking up the soap bar laying on the edge of the tub. It smelled floral, like roses and jasmine. Kind of what Ell smelled like.

“Huh? You haven’t even told me about your adventures across the world yet!”

“Enough about me, I want to know about you.”

“No fair!” Carmilla had to laugh at the petulant tone Ell took with her. “You’ve had this whole life of travel and adventure, yet you’re sitting there, not letting me hear any of it!”

“Sorry, sweetie. That’s the way the world works.”

“Fine,” Ell huffed. “I was born in Boston but moved here at the age of two. I’ve lived in New York ever since, except for when we summer in the Hamptons. The end.”

“Wow. Interesting.”

“Come on, Carmilla, your story is so much better than mine! You’ve been all over the world… And poor little me – I’ve been cooped up on the same shore for my entire life!”

Carmilla smirked. “Well, where would you want to go if you had the chance?”

“Everywhere.” Ell laughed lightly. “You probably think it’s crazy.”

“Not at all.”

“I want to see the pyramids in Egypt. I want to cruise the river Seine and tango in Argentina, to set sail across the high seas and find hidden treasure, and visit Tokyo and Shanghai and Cape Town.” Ell audibly perked up. “Father’s bringing me to Venice on business next summer!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go if I were you,” Carmilla said, climbing out of the tub. She grabbed the fresh laundered towel and began wiping herself dry.

“Why not?” Ell asked.

“Stinks to high heaven, especially when it’s warm. All of those drunkards, doing nothing except eating, sleeping, and fucking, nowhere for their piss to go but onto the walls…” Carmilla paused, suddenly aware of the silence through the door. What if she had offended Ell? Her heart plummeted to her stomach as she remembered that she rarely spoke like a gentlewoman.

A sudden peal of laughter startled her out of her wits. “Are you always like this?”

Carmilla smiled ruefully. “Yeah, guess I am.”

“Good. Don’t ever change.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There probably won't be another update to this fic for a week or two. I'm trying to figure out a schedule that works, as I haven't written anything past this point yet. Please bear with me. This will get finished, I promise.


	5. Just for you

Allison’s breakfasts were always good. Ell rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she watched the housekeeper, always uniformed in her black dress and white apron, bustle in and out of the kitchen, carrying bowls of fresh fruit, oatmeal, hot chocolate, omelettes, and quail on toast. The sun was barely up, but like her father, Ell was an early riser, intent on, or perhaps obsessed with, getting a good head start to the day. She stared absently out the window that overlooked the gardens as Allison laid out the china, cutlery, and napkins before her. Weak golden rays filtered through the open window and into the dining room. Ell always loved feeling the sun on her face.

“Good morning, darling!” Harry Carmichael grabbed the seat opposite Ell, at the head of the table, and plopped onto it.

“Good morning, daddy,” Ell answered.

Harry smiled, tucking his napkin into the collar of his crisp starched shirt. “Our guest isn’t an early bird, is she?”

“Nope,” Ell agreed. She reached for her cup of hot chocolate and brought it to her mouth. The warm sweet syrupy liquid flowed down her throat and she closed her eyes in satisfaction. Chocolate had always been her favourite. Well, chocolate, and anything else sweet and decadent.

“What’ll you be up to today?” Harry nodded at the housekeeper as she set a plate of mutton chops before him.

“I’m not sure exactly. I was expecting to arrange something last night, but that didn’t go exactly as planned.”

“It sure didn’t. Maybe I could arrange something for you, with the… interesting gentleman from last night, Mr. Hyatt?”

Ell smiled as she remembered the boy from the previous night who had been so affected with foot-in-mouth syndrome. “That would be lovely.”

“Anything for my baby girl,” her father chuckled. “Allison, the mutton is delicious. As always.”

“Thank you, Mr. Carmichael,” the housekeeper replied from the doorway to the kitchen. She always refused the family’s invitations to dine with them, no matter how informal the setting or how persistent they were. Ell suspected it had to do with her uptight training at the aristocratic estates of England.

“What are you up to today, daddy?” she asked.

“Work,” Harry sighed. But Ell could detect the faintest trace of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He was hiding something. Or perhaps someone.

“On a Saturday?”

“I’ll be down at the harbour. A lot of our ships are docking today and I want to make sure that nothing goes wrong. Speaking of which,” Harry fished in his jacket for his pocket watch. “I’m running late. The first ship docks in half an hour.” He rose quickly and walked around the table to kiss his daughter on the cheek. “I’ll telephone Mr. Hyatt on the way, but while you’re waiting, maybe you could busy yourself helping our guest.”

“Of course.”

“See you at dinner.”

Ell finished her breakfast quickly. She hadn’t forgotten about the girl sleeping soundly in the guest room upstairs, and she was secretly glad that she had this time to get to know Carmilla and show her around the estate. Last night had been fun, but entirely inadequate. After she had dressed the girl’s injuries and put her to bed, they’d stayed up, late into the night, talking, until Ell could barely keep her eyes open, yet it still wasn’t enough time. It felt like she and Carmilla had known each other for a lifetime. Talking to her was beyond easy. It felt right, the way that they clicked.

Spurred by the recollection, Ell took the stairs two at a time up to the guest room. She gently pushed open the door and tiptoed across the creaky floor. Carmilla had the covers pulled up over her face, and a mop of dark hair was the only part of her that peeked out from underneath. She was just too cute, Ell thought. She grabbed Carmilla by the shoulders and gently shook her.

“It’s time to wake, Sleeping Beauty,” she whispered.

The sleeping girl just groaned and pulled the covers further up her head. “It’s way too early to get up.”

Ell snorted. “Carmilla, it’s seven o’clock already! I don’t know what world you’re living in, but that’s plenty late for the rest of us.”

“Seven o’clock? You’re a lunatic,” Carmilla protested incredulously. She flipped over and buried her face in the pillow.

“But I want to show you around!” Ell sighed, plopping onto the covers.

“Cupcake, it can wait until, you know, an hour that’s not ungodly?”

Ell couldn’t help but grin at the quip. It was so typical of Carmilla. She reached out and tucked a strand of dark hair behind the girl’s ear. “Come on, won’t you do it for me?”

An indignant growl erupted from Carmilla’s throat, but just as Ell was about to give up, a hand wrapped around her wrist. “Fine,” Carmilla grumbled. “Just for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is way overdue but in the meantime, if you want to check out my other fic, Comrade Carmilla, for less tragic endings and more overall ridiculousness and communism, the url is here http://archiveofourown.org/works/8000464/chapters/18315433 and feel free to drop me a Tumblr message here http://chelseathecow.tumblr.com/ I love friends! Final link, I promise, but I just had to share it, it was too good. Charming Ice makes the best Carmilla cracks, so here you go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6cOKWTiIS0

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, I totally wrote this because I wanted to know Carmilla and Ell's backstory. I also think this is such a bad idea because school happens to be a thing and I don't actually have time to finish this and maybe it'll take 8 months of my life to finish (what happened with the last fanfic I wrote), plus, if Carmilla and Laura don't have a happy ending in season 3, I'll have to write another fanfic just to make myself feel better.  
> Long story short, my obsession is horrible and I need better judgement, but I hope you enjoy this! I'd like to finish by Christmas, but realistically, it probably won't be done until March 2017.


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